Driving assist apparatuses and methods

Abstract

Apparatuses and methods provide an image pick-up device for picking up an image outside a vehicle, an apparatus body including an installation portion installed to an interior-side surface of a pillar of the vehicle, and a display device provided integrally with the apparatus body and including a display screen disposed on an interior side with respect to the installation portion. An image pick-up element of the image pick-up device is provided such that a roll angle of the image pick-up element is substantially equal to a roll angle of the display screen of the display device.

Description

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE[0001]The disclosures of Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-156473, filed on Jun. 13, 2007, and Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-156474, filed on Jun. 13, 2007, including the specifications, drawings, and abstracts thereof, are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Related Technical Fields[0003]Related technical fields include driving assist apparatuses for vehicles capable of reducing blind spots for a driver.[0004]2. Related Art[0005]Generally, a vehicle such as an automobile is provided with a plurality of pillars for supporting a roof on a vehicle body. Such pillars are necessary for ensuring the strength and safety of the vehicle body. However, the pillars are arranged to divide windowpanes, and thus can form blind spots in the field of view of a driver. In light of this, to reduce the blind spot for the driver formed particularly by a front pillar, driving assist apparatuses are known that provide an inner surface...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]To overcome this situation, it is conceivable to dispose the display screen inclined in the respective three-dimensional directions. In such a case, however, no specific proposal has been made so far on an appropriate configuration for reducing the computational load of image processing for causing the display device to display the image picked up by the image pick-up device, and for suppressing the deterioration in image quality.

[0008]Various exemplary implementations of the broad principles described herein provide driving assist apparatuses, methods, and programs capable of reducing the computational load of the image processing for causing the display device to display the image picked up by the image pick-up device, and suppressing the deterioration in image quality, even if the display screen is disposed inclined in the respective three-dimensional directions.

Problems solved by technology

However, the pillars are arranged to divide windowpanes, and thus can form blind spots in the field of view of a driver.

Practically, however, the shape of the display screen of the display device is limited by the production costs and so forth.

Thus, it is difficult to make the shape of the display screen of the display device precisely conform to the shape of the inner surface of the pillar.

In such a case, however, no specific proposal has been made so far on an appropriate configuration for reducing the computational load of image processing for causing the display device to display the image picked up by the image pick-up device, and for suppressing the deterioration in image quality.

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